Time to share strategies: Garuda

I'm seeing a lot of x3BLM setups, is that mainly for the clones? Or to skip phase? We still haven't defeated her but have been able to skip phase 2 using PLD WHM X2BLM X2DRG BRD MNK. Of course, knowing what to do after AB is another story ;-;

Phase 2 is just so random and annoying that most people shoot to skip it. But the more I do this fight, the more I start to realize that gear really DOES make a difference. Knowing what to do means nothing if you cant deal the damage/take the hits required to even get to that point.

Garuda really is a gear-check fight.

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Originally Posted by Griss

No no. you bring her down to 70. the blm's rest up mp while the dd's do there thing and get her to the pre af plume spam(third jump with competent dd's). Blm's go beast mode and burn her down as much as possible. The goal here is to drop enough damage on her so she will skip straight to the clone phase after astral. At minimum it will shorten the time she is in her second phase.

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We've tried something like this. Our BLMs are really well geared and would just pull hate far too easily though if we went all out at the start, maybe our PLD needs even more +enmity gear or something. We opted to take it easy until after the 2nd set of plumes is dead and then zerg her down from there with a spell cycle, similar to how people used to BLM burn before they patched it.

Usually get her down to 30% ish once Aerial Blast goes off, sometimes she starts in phase 2 but it always takes us a mere few seconds to get her straight to phase 3. All BLMs are in red enmity for most of it. We've not beaten it yet though, Chiralda drops in no time at all but Suprana in particular giving us all sorts of problems since BRDs finding it difficult to bring her down without dying. Setup we're using atm is PLD BRDx3 BLMx3 WHM.

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Originally Posted by Req

Another big thing you need to do is make sure that the bards are getting 3000 tp to do rain of death out of combo.

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I'm assuming everyone knows this but exorcism beans (or any cheap throwing item) are a godsend for getting to 3k TP quickly. Just alternate throw and light shot.

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Originally Posted by Kagato

Well I did a Garuda run all day today. Seems we can never deal enough damage to skip phase 2. Also, we seem to have the hardest time with plumes.

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you want to make sure of 2 things. 1. your BRDs can get the plumes down fast and none of them blow up. (melee can help them if they need it but generally you want to shoot for 2 bards handling plumes until her last phase of plumes which is a bit much for BRDs only sometimes) 2. BLM should have at least 465 M.Acc unbuffed (this with brd buff should ensure you have very very minimal spell resists which will be the biggest killer of your DPS)

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Originally Posted by Kaizlu

I'm seeing a lot of x3BLM setups, is that mainly for the clones? Or to skip phase? We still haven't defeated her but have been able to skip phase 2 using PLD WHM X2BLM X2DRG BRD MNK. Of course, knowing what to do after AB is another story ;-;

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you can usually skip phase 2 with 2 BLM and melee on her, I guess it depends on what jobs are available and the fact that BLM can stay out of harms way much easier.

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Originally Posted by Kaizlu

I'm seeing a lot of x3BLM setups, is that mainly for the clones? Or to skip phase? We still haven't defeated her but have been able to skip phase 2 using PLD WHM X2BLM X2DRG BRD MNK. Of course, knowing what to do after AB is another story ;-;

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Might be the underlined bit more than anything. BLM have the best amount of sustained damage in Phase 1 since they're useless against plumes. Your melee can mop them up while BLMs just keep tagging away at Garuda.

Here's the video with my LS doing Garuda. It's from a BRD point of view, so I don't know how well it'll capture what the tanks are doing:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_1jty...ature=g-user-u

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Originally Posted by Alkimi

Usually get her down to 30% ish once Aerial Blast goes off, sometimes she starts in phase 2 but it always takes us a mere few seconds to get her straight to phase 3. All BLMs are in red enmity for most of it.

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If you are sometimes hitting P2 you are probably hovering around 37-42% when she astral flow, and not 30%.

BRD 3x is rough since theres no one to really tank Suprana, and BRD requires 8 yards for combo. BRD can do huge burst with Quick Nock comboed and Barrage but it requires some threat built on her by someone else (WAR DPS is usually a preferable offtank) to continue doing WS's etc.

Side dupes are probably incredibly difficult with that set up. I'd suggest dropping 1 BRD for a WAR DPS that can offtank her, or assigning positions for BRDs so they are spread out enough so Suprana is always running around.

I've read that you can avoid damage to the pillars if the tank stands between pillars and Garuda during AOE. What exactly does this mean? We've been trying to position our tank accordingly, but it doesn't seem to work. Any hints?

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Originally Posted by XaveStern

I've read that you can avoid damage to the pillars if the tank stands between pillars and Garuda during AOE. What exactly does this mean? We've been trying to position our tank accordingly, but it doesn't seem to work. Any hints?

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You mean during her teleport WS move (this is the only one of her moves that should hit the pillars anyway)? I don't think you can do this. Based on my personal experience, I would recommend the tank runs behind a pillar (or behind Garuda, depending on her position) and bravely hides there like the rest of the group. I would think it's a bit safer as tank won't take damage and won't be in any possible danger after the move. Other than the tele moves, our tank tanks her where she pops, tanks back and Garuda's face towards the outer border of the area. In phase one, that is.

Anyway, wanted to say thank you to all the people who posted tips about holding her in phase 1 so that you can skip phase 2. We tried this on our latest run and succeeded to skip the phase 2 a lot more consistently, so it helped a lot! :)

Quick question: Anyone know the chat filters for knowing when garuda summons west wind , south wind , and bend and warp? I forgot :x

All the way at the bottom of the list "Other actions/information concerning others" shows wind messages.

Consider using MNK instead of BLM since they can damage both sisters.

For sure thanks for quick reply.

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Originally Posted by Dawiichan

Our most current set up is WHMx1, MNKx2, DRGx2, WARx1, PLDX1, BRDx1.

First phase is straight to the point.

PLD tanks garuda. WAR, DRGs and BRD take care of the plumes. MNKs stay on garuda full time. After two jumps, garuda should be close to 65% HP. When garuda is at around 68% just keep auto attacking her and make sure not to get her too low before she jumps. After the third jump, everyone goes all out and the DRGs, WAR and BRD still take care of the barrage of plumes. DRGs and Bards should time their aoes so they can hit them as they're running away from garuda.

For AB the BRD uses battle voice and casts MP song. WHM casts SS and curaga.

For the two sisters, the two monks take care of Chirada and the rest of the melees take care of Suprana. One monk should taunt Chirada and then hundred fists right afterwards so the other monk can combo on her with ease. If needed, the DRGs can use Dragonfire Dive on her if she's not going down fast enough.

When she uses south winds make sure to aoe down the plumes. The monks don't have to if your party is taking care of it, so they can just focus on Garuda here. However if your party is lacking in AoE for whatever reason, the monks should aura pulse it [B]without[B] Fists of Fire.

When she uses west winds make sure everyone runs to the center and take down the sisters. After that just nuke her down. Make sure to not be in the edge of the arena.

When she bends the wind everyone go to Garuda and take care of the sisters.

You can ignore the sisters and just burn down Garuda if she's low enough in HP.

This is how we currently do Garuda.

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A question if you would so indulge us Miijin,

Doesn't letting Garuda jump 3 times make Aerial Blast do obscene amounts of damage? The reason I ask is that there seems to be some confusion among the player-base. Some claim that you should only let her jump a maximum of two times while others like yourself claim it is best to let her jump 3x. My group can skip Phase 2 90+ % of the time (or have her low enough to quickly move her out of it) but we find that Aerial Blast sometimes does way to much damage and ends up wiping half the party if we let her jump 3 times.

Thanks for the excellent set-up and the mini walkthrough.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uypfA...feature=relmfu

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Originally Posted by Darkillumina

A question if you would so indulge us Miijin,

Doesn't letting Garuda jump 3 times make Aerial Blast do obscene amounts of damage?

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Garuda's Aerial Blast damage is entirely reliant on how much damage the pillars have taken. Each "chunk" taken off a single pillar represents a certain chunk of additional Aerial Blast damage; I haven't paid close enough attention to say exactly how much, but that's the gist of the mechanic. So, yes, potentially if you're slow on killing the plumes, going through 3 plumes might exacerbate Aerial Blast, but it shouldn't be an issue to survive it with Sanguine Rite/Stoneskin/Sentinel/etc. Generally, the payoff of additional DPS time on Garuda by going through 3 plume spawns outweighs the risk.

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Originally Posted by Darkillumina

A question if you would so indulge us Miijin,

Doesn't letting Garuda jump 3 times make Aerial Blast do obscene amounts of damage? The reason I ask is that there seems to be some confusion among the player-base. Some claim that you should only let her jump a maximum of two times while others like yourself claim it is best to let her jump 3x. My group can skip Phase 2 90+ % of the time (or have her low enough to quickly move her out of it) but we find that Aerial Blast sometimes does way to much damage and ends up wiping half the party if we let her jump 3 times.

Thanks for the excellent set-up and the mini walkthrough.

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Like stated before, it's based on how well your party takes care of the plumes. Garuda's attacks can attack the pillars so you have to position her correctly. We position her in between two pillars with the PLD being all the way to the edge. This makes it so she deals minimal damage to the pillars. Then you need the two DRGS, the WAR and the BRD to take down as many plumes as possible.

If done right Aerial Blast does about 50% to everyone in the party except for the PLD and the War when HP song is up.

Thank you both kind gentlemen. It appears then that if Garuda is positioned correctly we can use the extra time to pump out even more DPS than we already do by utilizing that extra jump. *Plumes are not an issue*

+1 for both.

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Originally Posted by carraway

Garuda's Aerial Blast damage is entirely reliant on how much damage the pillars have taken. Each "chunk" taken off a single pillar represents a certain chunk of additional Aerial Blast damage; I haven't paid close enough attention to say exactly how much, but that's the gist of the mechanic.

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From what I've seen you start with 12 'sections' (3 in each pillar). You need 8 still standing for Aerial Blast to do 2k damage:

8+ remaining : 2000 damage
5-7 remaining : 3500 damage
1-4 remaining : 8000 damage
0 remaining = 9999 damage.

Do you guys have any DPS our BLMs can aim for? One of our BLMs is currently at 55 DPS on Garuda and we're trying to figure out if we're doing damage fast enough.

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Originally Posted by XaveStern

Do you guys have any DPS our BLMs can aim for? One of our BLMs is currently at 55 DPS on Garuda and we're trying to figure out if we're doing damage fast enough.

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That's probably not enough but depends since you cant really go all-out until after the third set of plumes. Should maybe compare it to the other blm in pt.

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Originally Posted by Ambuter

Setup I use most is: Pld, Whm, Blm x2, Drg x2, Brd x2

First part before AF is pretty simple. Brds and Drgs(keen flurry Ring of Talons) kill the plumes. Dps to around ~65% hp and she'll jump for the AF plumes. Take care of plumes and Dps garuda down to around ~40% hp so after the AF she'll skip her second phase and go straight into spawning Chirada and Suprana.

Pld flashes group and vokes Suprana. Pld tanks Suprana and Garuda at the same time while a blm is most likely to be tanking Chirada. Pld covers Blms as needed. Rest of the group stand behind them so they don't get hit/stunned.
Kill clones and Dps garuda.

A) If Clones spawn again. Determine if you can kill garuda within the minute or again kill the clones before they blast you.

B) 3 tornadoes cover the arena(2 on the outside and 1 in the middle). Run to the outer rim of the arena and start moving in a clock-wise direction with the tornadoes. Kill the plumes that spawn during this phase.

The main thing you need to do for easier wins is skip the second phase after AF and have Suprana/Chirada spawn right away.

Kinda tired writing this. Let me know if anyone has questions. May post a video later of our garuda fights as well from a Pld point of view.

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This is the most common setup that we've used to beat her. Ambuter covers it all here in detail, it's very similar to ours so I'll just copy-paste his because I'm lazy :P. Just some learning points we've taken from our fights.

*In order to avoid a lot of unnecessary heartache, she must be brought down to less than 40% health in order to avoid Phase 2 and move on to Phase 3. Invest in your BLM gearing and skill to get that DPS up, food and pots help.

*DRGs should ensure that keen flurry and ring of talons is up after her last jump during Phase 1, as there will be substantially more plumes to take down. Assigning primary pillars to each "plume killer" helps avoid wasted AOE skills

*DRGs save Dragonfire Dive for Chirada in the event that a BLM goes down during a clone wave.

*Go get the GC tonic/expectorant, each person have one of each on their person, it's an instant raise. No brainer here. 215 seals total for both.

*PLD covers your highest DPS BLM during clones. There will be more than enough people on Suparna, you can't afford to lose that BLM with this setup.

*PLD voke/flash Suparna as quickly as possible. If she goes for and kills the WHM, it's a wipe. Hate may get pulled off of the PLD by the DDs who are on Suparna, that's fine. The name of the game is to get her attention first to keep her off of the mages.

*Don't face Garuda or the clones at the rest of the party...please?

*When clones die, DPS Garuda as best as you can within the time-frame, but after one or two WS combos, save that TP. You'll need it to AOE the plumes for South Winds, or to burn down the next set of clones. Throwing weapons help with TP generation in between auto-attacks.

*If Garuda is less than 20%, we usually just ignore the clones and burn down Garuda. Be wise about this, as this depends on your party's own level of DPS.

I see a lot of concern on the thread about "how much DPS do I need". I don't have an answer to that yet, but next time we fight I'll take note of it. I'm sure that a lot of people may disagree, and others may side with me when I say this, but I feel that these are the necessary elements in any high DPS BLM, in order of priority:
A well-geared/skilled tank > BLM Skill > BLM Gear > Food and Pots.

*Get protection. You've got to have a tank that can QUICKLY generate and hold hate. A BLM with all 5 meld/BIS gear with a high degree of skill won't produce much DPS if they're dead due to pulled hate, or if they have to hold back their DPS the entire fight. Need a tank that can support that level of DPS. Overall level of potential damage is proportional to the amount of enmity that can be generated by the tank.

*Get skilled. Doesn't matter how great your gear is if you can't quickly and efficiently move through your dmg/hate rotation.

*Get geared. A highly skilled BLM with great gear will outperform an equally skilled BLM with nothing but full AF or worse. It's a numbers/stats game when the skill is equal.

*Get support. Food, potions, and songs all help to make a great BLM amazing, but they aren't much without a good foundation.

This turned out to be a little more lengthy than I intended, but hopefully it helps some of you out. Cheers.

Okay, I need some advice here- as we are literally taking Garuda down to phase 3 (skipping phase 2) and then hell breaks loose.

Our current set-up is WAR(tank), WHM, DRG, BRD x2, BLM x3 (sometimes we have a THM for AoE Sanguine pre-AB)

This is what usually happens at the opening of phase 3

Garuda summons the West Winds:
BLMs approach the rear of Garuda to time-Flare her and Chirada. DRG, and 2 BRDs handle Suparna. The only issue we have on this phase is Suparna bouncing around between the BRDs (we were told DRG should be "sorta tanking" Suparna), since BRDs are saving up quick nock and barrage on her. Biggest issue we have here is that people get bounced around due to the uncertainty of the clones' hate.

The winds begin to warp and bend:
This is the other of the 3 phases we can start out with and it's the one that messes us up the most, it seems. WAR runs to Garuda, and tanks her with his back to the wall (roughly the center), while Chirada is also handled with timed Flares and the 2 BRD and DRG are in charge of taking down Suparna. As a BRD, the biggest issue with this phase is that there is seemingly no room to get a combo off on Suparna if she isn't at either end of the safe area to get some range on her. What is the best way to handle this situation? While we do manage to take them down majority of the time, the AoEs are wrecking havoc on people, sometimes from Garuda.

Garuda summons the south winds:
This phase is hit or miss. When she isn't immediately pulled to one of the safe areas, someone or several people might eat a dust tornado. Otherwise, it seems like we do this phase like how we are supposed to, kill Satin plume asap (is there a set place/timing it spawns from or is it random?), tank leads Garuda, everyone else do their thing. We never seem to get this as our starting phase of phase 3, is that normal? I've seen a youtube run where the group got this south wind phase right after Aerial Blast, was that adjusted?

Something that recently happened in a run where we nearly killed her was she went into her warp and bend phase after her south winds. What does the tank do afterwards? Do the tornadoes spawn in different locations? According to him one of the tornadoes spawned on top of him and he proceeded to run with Garuda to a safe spot on the otherside of it, leaving half of the party either stranded at another spot or forced to run through the tornadoes to him. What was the deal with that and what should've been the appropriate action to take?

Any relevant help would be appreciated.

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Originally Posted by Cidel

Okay, I need some advice here- as we are literally taking Garuda down to phase 3 (skipping phase 2) and then hell breaks loose.

Our current set-up is WAR(tank), WHM, DRG, BRD x2, BLM x3 (sometimes we have a THM for AoE Sanguine pre-AB)

This is what usually happens at the opening of phase 3

Garuda summons the West Winds:
BLMs approach the rear of Garuda to time-Flare her and Chirada. DRG, and 2 BRDs handle Suparna. The only issue we have on this phase is Suparna bouncing around between the BRDs (we were told DRG should be "sorta tanking" Suparna), since BRDs are saving up quick nock and barrage on her. Biggest issue we have here is that people get bounced around due to the uncertainty of the clones' hate.

It's not so much of uncertainty, it just means the BRD are doing better DPS than the DRG, ask if the DRG has issue getting combo off. Otherwise to prevent Suparna running all over, make sure whoever have hate don't move around and just tank it.

The warrior should also be DPSing the Suparna if possible, but don't quote me on this because i have only been using PLD for this fight for along time

The winds begin to warp and bend:
This is the other of the 3 phases we can start out with and it's the one that messes us up the most, it seems. WAR runs to Garuda, and tanks her with his back to the wall (roughly the center), while Chirada is also handled with timed Flares and the 2 BRD and DRG are in charge of taking down Suparna. As a BRD, the biggest issue with this phase is that there is seemingly no room to get a combo off on Suparna if she isn't at either end of the safe area to get some range on her. What is the best way to handle this situation? While we do manage to take them down majority of the time, the AoEs are wrecking havoc on people, sometimes from Garuda.

There is a room for combo for BRD, the tornadoes on your left and right turns on and off every few second, that is your window to start a combo and then you run back in to finish the combo, same thing here, whoever have hate on the clone needs to pay attention and move to where their AoE won't hit your party member, especially the WHM. Don't just stand there and keep nuking

Garuda summons the south winds:
This phase is hit or miss. When she isn't immediately pulled to one of the safe areas, someone or several people might eat a dust tornado. Otherwise, it seems like we do this phase like how we are supposed to, kill Satin plume asap (is there a set place/timing it spawns from or is it random?), tank leads Garuda, everyone else do their thing. We never seem to get this as our starting phase of phase 3, is that normal? I've seen a youtube run where the group got this south wind phase right after Aerial Blast, was that adjusted?

Usually people get slept if you are too slow to kill the Satins, BRDs usually saves 3k tp before every phases starts to preemptive this particular phase. DRGs can also pull a very quick keenflurry RoT

Something that recently happened in a run where we nearly killed her was she went into her warp and bend phase after her south winds. What does the tank do afterwards? Do the tornadoes spawn in different locations? According to him one of the tornadoes spawned on top of him and he proceeded to run with Garuda to a safe spot on the otherside of it, leaving half of the party either stranded at another spot or forced to run through the tornadoes to him. What was the deal with that and what should've been the appropriate action to take?

Dont really understand this question.


Any relevant help would be appreciated.

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Originally Posted by Chardrizard

Dont really understand this question.

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How does tank transition Garuda from South Winds to Warp and Bend?

I dont really recall which one is south winds which one is warp and bend but this is how i handle transitions as a tank,


If Garuda runs east, i runs east, 2 clones pop. Pay attention to tornado around you, if it stops, you runs to middle zone.

1. If he decides to go to clones phase again, middle area is always safe since he never repeats the same pattern in a row.
2. If he decides to go to plumes phase, as soon as you see plume, run to the outer circle immediatly, this should be the same as everyone in your party, as soon as they see plumes, run to outer circle. It doesn't matter if you run to wrong direction from the tank because the middle tornado turns on and off every few second and you have window to run across.

Just make sure you run to outer circle first, people usually panics when they run wrong direction and they takes damage from tornado from trying to run back in rush.

Her patterns are also predictable, it will never be the same one for 3 turns.

If he summons clones for 2 cycle in a row, plumes are guarenteed for the 3rd turn.
or clone>plume>clone, clones phases are also never same in a row, if she runs east on the first turn, she will not run east again for 2nd clone.

Thanks for the input, we just scored our 1st win with only a couple of members standing (she did clones twice), as we decided we wouldn't try and take down clones twice and go all out on her if she did.


But it seems like South Winds (plumes) should be the phase that gets the most free damage in.

Congrats on the win, most parties goes through 2 phase of clones though and go all out if he decides to do 3rd clones.